1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to canister warming apparatus for bathroom use.
2. Description of the Related Art
Shaving is easiest and most comfortable when the body area to be shaved has been warm and wet for some time, because this softens the hairs and makes them easier to cut. Barbers traditionally place a hot, wet towel over a man's face prior to shaving it, and use warm lather when shaving.
Today most people are home shavers. Most shavers, do not take time to heat towels for shaving. Most shavers use shaving cream or gel from a can. For both comfort and shaving efficiency, the shaving cream should be warm. Warming a can of shaving cream requires more work and effort than most shavers expend.
Shaving is virtually always done in the bathroom. Many people shave during or after a bath or shower, when the hairs are soft. Shaved hairs can easily be washed down the drain during a shower, and shaving cream can easily be rinsed away.
If shaving is done over a sink, a can of shaving cream might be heated in a stoppered sink full of hot water, but this ties up the sink, covers the can with scum, and wastes heat. (Only a small portion of the energy in the hot water goes into the shaving cream. The rest heats the bathroom, or fogs up the mirror.)
If shaving is done during a bath, the shaving cream can be left bobbing in the bath water. This is an energy-efficient way to heat the shaving cream to a comfortable temperature, but having an extra object in the tub can be irksome and difficult to find when needed.
Showering is more common than bathing and uses less water and energy. For those who shower, there is no convenient way to immerse a can of shaving cream in water. A cup, mug, or small bucket could be used, but this would need to be periodically drained and held in the shower stream to replace the cooled water with hot water.
A bottle warmer, hot plate, or the like could be placed in bathroom for heating a can of shaving cream. However, any device used for heating a shaving cream can, when used in or within the reach of a shower, should not use electric current. Use of 120-volt electricity is too dangerous for people who are standing or immersed in water. A plug-in device would have to be located out of reach of the tub or shower stall, the very place where many people like to shave. Moreover, heating a shaving cream can with electricity is doubly dangerous since overheating may cause the shaving cream can to explode. Batteries are generally not satisfactory for high-wattage applications like heating.
Shelf or counter space for a warming device is often scarce in a bathroom. Thus, even if shaving is done after showering, when outside the tub or stall, electric warming is still impractical.
Several prior-art inventions warm containers with water, which does not pose a shock hazard.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,597,435, issued to Benjamin Fosco, Jr., shows a bottle warmer or cooler for bringing flexible bag liner-type baby bottles to a desired temperature. The device includes a handled cylindrical container having a tube which runs vertically along the inner wall from the lip to a point about an inch from the bottom. The tube is open on both ends, and water from a faucet is poured into the upper end. The water passing through the tube exits upwardly through openings in a baffle plate to flow upward past a baby bottle sitting in the container. The bottle is centrally located by four brackets which project from the interior of the container. The water, having moved up past the length of the bottle, runs over the lip of the container and down the container sides.
The Fosco, Jr. invention transfers heat or cold by wetting the outside of the plastic bag of the baby bottle. To achieve a desired temperature, the water from the faucet must be run until the temperature reaches equilibrium. The flow of hot and cold water must be adjusted to reach the desired temperature. For rapid temperature change, the water temperature must be set higher or lower than the desired temperature and the bottle immersion timed carefully. If timing is wrong or the flow rates change due to a faucet being opened elsewhere, the temperature can become dangerously high.
The brackets 40 are spaced to snugly hold the standard baby bottles having a typical diameter of about two and 1/4 inches. Thus, the Fosco, Jr. invention would be unable to accept many large cans of shaving cream, which typically have a standard diameter of about two and 5/8 inches.
The Fosco, Jr. patent does not provide a means for attaching or mounting his device to a wall or shower stall. His device includes a handle 22 for lifting, and is intended for use in a sink (column 3, line 43) to catch the overflow.
Fosco, Jr. refers to U.S. Pat. No. 4,163,471, issued to Frederic Leder. Leder's invention also warms baby bottles with flowing faucet water, but the direction of flow is opposite to the Fosco, Jr. device. There is no tube. Water runs over the top of the bottle and down the sides as it stands in a container. At the bottom of the container the water escapes the container through drain openings 22. Wall spacers project inwardly to hold the bottle. Leder adjusts the drain area to limit the water flow rate without overflowing. However, Leder's device is wasteful of water and the thermal efficiency remains low. Leder's invention is not sized to accept larger cans of shaving cream.
F. C. Peterson teaches a device somewhat similar to Leder's in U.S. Pat. No. 3,402,763. Peterson connects a flexible hose from a faucet directly into a baby bottle. The water passes into the space between a rigid outer bottle and the flexible inner liner containing milk or formula, then drains out through holes in the outer bottle. As in the Leder device, the flow is from top to bottom.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,410,034, issued to Bernhardt et al., shows a water tank 11 with an opening specially shaped to hold a bottle so that it is immersed in tank water that is at a particular temperature. The bottle must have a particular shape to fit into the tank. The bottle must be deformable (see column 3, line 55) to assume different shapes. There is no flow of heating fluid in the Bernhardt et al. invention, nor any means of increasing convection between the heating fluid and the container.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,362,466, issued to J. D. Columbo, shows an apparatus for heating steel drums with steam. Steam nozzles are disposed under a grate on which a drum rests, and a cover is put over the drum. Steam from the nozzles condenses and runs down through the grate.
Mack Frank, Jr. depicts a shower bath caddie in U.S. Pat. No. 3,869,183. The caddie attaches to the wall of the shower and swings out for shaving. The caddie includes a mirror and spaces for razors, shaving cream, etc.
Prior-art inventions do not permit carefree, inexpensive, and efficient warming of a shaving cream container in a shower. Shower water is an ideal medium for warming shaving cream. Shower water is always at a temperature that is comfortable and safe for heating a can of shaving cream. Shower water poses no threat of electric shock, overheating, burning, or explosion. The shower water used for showering is also used for warming the shaving cream canister, without wasting water.